to understand what's going on during the hopeless fiscal cliff negotiations rewind to 2011 when boehner and president obama came within inches of a grand bargain, a deal that would have forced both democrats and republicans to eat their vegetables. in its comprehensive analysis of what happens during the secret negotiations, matt bai wrote -- the deal unraveled in large part because speaker boehner could not get his unruly caucus to go along with raising new revenue. fast forward to this year and republicans now think that deal, the one they walked away from, sounds pretty good. they're using it as a basis for their current proposal. only problem. boehner had his chance. president obama now thinks he has the upper hand. according to the "washington post's" ezra klein, quote -- >> joining us now representative chris van hollen of maryland, ranking member of the house budget committee. great to have you on the program. >> great to be with you, alex. >> let's talk a little bit about 2011 versus 2012, which is to say, the republican party is a very different negotiating position than they w